Like an alcoholic who goes back on the sauce as soon as they hit a rocky patch, the first thing Ashling did was reach for her tarot cards. She’d sorely neglected them lately and if it hadn’t been for Joy’s constant consultation in the wake of Half-man-half-badger’s departure, they’d have been covered in dust. But the noncommittal selection gave her no comfort.

Edgy and agitated, Ashling was immersed in familiar resentment of her family. If only she’d had a normal one this wouldn’t have happened. She thought for a moment about Marcus. She didn’t blame him for being insecure. How he got up on a stage and did what he did was beyond her.

Rancour and regret generated insomnia: she had to talk to someone. But Joy wouldn’t do, and not just because her current sole topic of conversation was the ‘All half-men-half-badgers are bastards’ one. It had to be either Clodagh or Phelim, because both of them knew all there was to know about Ashling’s family. They’d understand and come through with the desired sympathy. But Phelim’s Sydney answering-machine picked up, so, despite the lateness of the hour, Ashling had no choice but to ring Clodagh. After apologizing for waking her, Ashling ranted her way through the sorry story and finished up by exclaiming, ‘And I wouldn’t mind, but I hate having to visit them.’

However, the required words of comfort didn’t issue from Clodagh. Instead she said sleepily, ‘I’ll go and see Marcus if you like.’

‘No, I didn’t mean…’

‘I can go with Ted.’ Clodagh’s tone woke up, as the idea became a possibility. ‘Ted and I will go instead of you, and we’ll provide moral support.’

This made Ashling feel much worse. She did not want Clodagh and Ted bonding. ‘But what about Dylan?’

‘Someone has to babysit.’

‘I don’t even want to visit my parents,’ Ashling repeated, keen to get her quota of sympathy.

‘But your mum’s much better now. It’ll be fine.’

There’s no one in charge here, nine-year-old Ashling had realized, before the end of that strange, horrible summer. She took to standing on the corner at the bottom of the road on Friday evenings, looking into the distance for her dad’s car, a churny sickness in her belly. While she waited, she muffled the terror that he would never come by playing games with herself. If the next car is a red one, everything’s going to he fine. If the second car’s reg plate ends with an even number, it’ll all he OK.

Eventually the Monday morning came when she asked her father not to leave.

‘I have to.’ He was terse. ‘If I lose my job, I don’t know how we’ll manage. Do your best to keep an eye on her.’

Ashling nodded gravely, and thought to herself, He shouldn’t have said that to me, I’m only a little girl

‘… Of course, Ashling’s very responsible. Only nine, but very grown-up for her age.’

There was muttered talk amongst the adults. People came to the house, conversed in low tones and fell silent whenever Ashling came near. ‘… his parents are elderly, they couldn’t cope with three lively children…’ Strange new words began to be mentioned. Depression. Nerves. Breakdown. Talk of her mother ‘going in someplace’.

Eventually her mother did ‘go in’, and her dad had to take them with him, as he worked. They drove long distances, car-sick and bored, Janet and Owen sharing the back seat with a display vacuum-cleaner. Ashling sat in the front like an adult as they criss-crossed the country, stopping at small electrical shops in small towns. From the very first appointment she absorbed Mike’s anxiety.

‘Wish me luck,’ he said, as he grabbed his folder of brochures. ‘This fellow wouldn’t spend Christmas. And don’t touch anything.’

Through the car window, Ashling watched her father greet his customer on the forecourt, and saw him mutate from irritable and worried to carefree and chatty. Suddenly he had all the time in the world for a chinwag. Never mind that he still had eight more calls to make that day and was way behind schedule due to their late start. Over he went to admire the man’s new car. A lot of leaning back, inspecting from all angles and congratulatory shoulder-slapping. As he talked animatedly to his customer, full of smiles and good-natured slagging, Ashling was visited with an awareness that she was much too young for. This is hard for him.

As soon as Mike got back into the car, the airy smiles dissolved and he changed back to being abrupt.

‘Did he order stuff, Dad?’

‘No.’ Mouth tight, reversing fast, getting the car back on the road, screeching to his next appointment.

Sometimes people ordered goods, but it was never as much as he’d hoped, and every time he climbed back into the car and drove away, he seemed further diminished.

By the end of the week, Janet and Owen were crying almost constantly, agitating to go home. And Ashling had managed to pick up an ear infection. Something which continued to recur at times of stress throughout her life.

After three weeks of incarceration, Monica re-emerged devoid of any obvious improvement. The anti-depressants she’d been prescribed made her irritatingly dopey and slow, so she changed to another type, which didn’t agree with her either.

And despite her on-going interaction with pharmaceuticals and Ashling’s increasingly elaborate rituals, things never really got better. Monica’s grief could be triggered by anything, from a natural disaster to a small random act of cruelty. A schoolboy being bullied out of his pocket-money could unleash the same torrent of weeping as an earthquake in Iran which killed thousands. But the days of silent, mostly bed-bound weeping were punctuated by fits of screaming, violent rage, directed at her husband, her children, and most of all herself.

‘I don’t want to feel this way!’ she used to shriek. ‘Would anyone want to feel like this? You’re lucky, Ashling, you’ll never suffer like me because you’ve no imagination.’

Ashling held on to this fact as though it were a shield. Lack of imagination was a great thing, it stopped you from turning into a nutter.

So volatile was Monica that Ashling spent large parts of her teenage years practically living at Clodagh’s.

Occasionally, amid the torpor and hysteria, there were pockets of normality. Which weren’t really normal at all. With each shirt that Monica ironed perfectly, with every meal that she served up on the dot of six, Ashling’s nerves stretched that little bit more, waiting for the time when it would all slip again. And when it came it was nearly a relief.